Nearly 1700 visitors meet with their relative inmates everyday at Tihar Prisons in Delhi. Keeping a track on the movement of this whopping number is not unmanageable, but is a very tedious job and also needs planned close watch. Keeping all this mind NIC has launched the Visitor Management System, a perfect and simple tool to make the Mulaqat process planned, unified and above all well-structured.
Shashi Kant Sharma Principal Systems Analyst, NIC HQ shashi.kant@nic.in
Vikas Agarwal Senior Systems Analyst, NIC HQ vikas.a@nic.in
Tihar Complex, New Delhi is one of the largest prison complexes in the world and has nine prisons in the Tihar Complex and one District Jail at Rohini with a total population of around 13,000 inmates. The Tihar Prisons Complex and the District Jail have a Central Public Relation Office (CPRO) through which relatives of prisoners can book meetings with a prisoner.
Wherever a visitor visits an inmate, all he has to do is get a photographed Visitor Pass. Nearly 1700 visitors meet with their relative inmates everyday and in order to ensure an efficient management of such a large number of visitations in the prison complex a Visitor Management System (VMS) has been developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC).
Issuance of Visitor's pass
A working day at Tihar complex
Visitor Management System (VMS) The scope of the Visitor Management System (VMS) is to manage meetings of the inmates with their relatives and thus, bring transparency in the 'Mulaqat'. VMS also facilitates the visitors to register their appointments /meetings with the inmates on telephone or in person at Central Public Relation Office. VMS has effectively and efficiently led to transparency in working by providing better services to the visitors. It has also played a vital role in enhancing visitor satisfaction, has acted as a single window interface and also has helped in tightening the noose on the movement of nefarious persons. Visitor Management System has also enhanced efficiency and effectiveness of the Prison Administration, controlled malpractices in the issuance of Visitor Slips, has also enhanced the speed and delivery of accurate information, created and enhanced the trust in the Prisons. In short Visitor Management System has been a perfect channel in making Visitor Monitoring SMART (Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent).
Need of a Visitor Management System There were many aspects that made the launch of Visitor Management System, the need of the hour. There were many challenges faced by the Delhi Prisons, the way visitors were handled prior to the launch of VMS. Some of the problems faced by the administration were that it was difficult to identify, detect and verify the visitors, keeping a record of visitors' photograph, keeping a tab on the movement of visitors / nefarious elements was also a very tedious job. One of the most vital challenges was keeping a centralised record of the visitors and VMS made it all easy. VMS is a well planned, well structured and a unified way that has ensured a smooth management of the visitors in the Jails of Delhi Prisons
Copy of visitor's pass
Visitor Management System: Process VMS facilitates collection and restoration of relevant data along with photograph of visitors who come to visit inmates of Tihar Jail everyday. It generates photographed (visitor's photograph) meeting slips and hands it to the visitors to meet their relative inmates. It also has Jail number and Cabin number printed on meeting slips.
Salient Features VMS is an outstanding example of e-Governance initiative catering to the need of the citizens. It is an easily available, simple and cost effective program backed by latest technology. Comparison techniques have been built in. Inmates' photographs are directly stored in a database.
VSM not only stores all comprehensive information about visitors such as Visitor Name, Parentage, Address, Documents in support of their identification, relationship etc. but also keeps a database of visitors photograph and Issuance of Photograph based Visitor Slip and freezes the information after the issuance of Visitor Slip safely. This data can be retrieved.
Visitor Management System also has a provision for registration of meetings on Sundays and holidays by telephone, but meetings take place on working days. It safely keeps information about visitor and day of the visit is readily available in any corner of the Prison complex, facilitates Prisons Authorities to exercise the proper check on number of visits permissible, gives provision to withhold the meetings of the Inmates who have been awarded punishment by the Hon'ble Court and also plays a vital role in weeding out the visitors with a suspected background.
Another vital use of VMS is the quick and accurate information that it provides for better strategic planning for administration, it also stores the User-ID for every transaction entered. VMS is a boon of ICT to all the District and Central Jails in India and abroad, National Crime Record Bureau, State Police Departments etc.